On Dreams and Nightmares

von Maximilian Steinbeis

Dear Friends of Verfassungsblog,

As the „Eurocrat’s Dream“ has ended, what have we woken up to? Since the very noteworthy collection of essays under title „The End of the Eurocrat’s Dream“, edited by CHRISTIAN JOERGES, DAMIEN CHALMERS and MARCUS JACHTENFUCHS, has appeared this spring, the waking-life reality in Europe and beyond has taken on a decidedly nightmarish character. I am very grateful to Christian Joerges for taking the initiative and to Julia Slupska for organising a debate on Verfassungsblog that convenes some of the best minds in EU law and politics, with an introduction by RICHARD BELLAMY. What should be done? How to we fix what is broken without throwing out the baby of European integration with the admittedly extremely dirty and abundant bath-water, asks MAURIZIO FERRERA? Kill the Fiscal Compact, recommends BOJAN BUGARIC. Turn to fundamental rights, says ELISE MUIR. Find a way of getting rid of the EMU, ponders KARL-HEINZ LADEUR. Make EU policies more contestable, demand MARK DAWSON and FLORIS DE WITTE. Put more emphasis on the redistribituive effects of EU policy, suggests DANIEL INNERARITY. Create a democratic counter-paradigm to the current managerial trajectory of the Union, proposes POUL KJAER.

On the member state level, this week has been dominated by debates about surveillance and the intrusive powers of intelligence services: PAUL BERNAL points to what he calls the „most invasive surveillance law in democratic history“, the so-called Snooper’s Charta about to be enacted in the United Kingdom. In Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court has decided that the enquiry committee of the Bundestag is not entitled to the government’s cooperation in looking into the US intelligence service NSA surveillance methods ...